Zhong Yong, Senior Vice President of UBTECH - "AI education should be based on education itself"

"Our current artificial intelligence education is similar to the popularization of computers in the late 90s of the 20th century, which was unfamiliar to the public at first, but one day it will be popularized to everyone." Zhong Yong, senior vice president and general manager of the education and consumer business group of UBTECH Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as UBTECH Technology), believes that artificial intelligence is an irreversible wave, and only by fully mastering artificial intelligence knowledge can we better meet the future era of human-machine coexistence.

In 2012, UBTECH was established in Shenzhen, and was the first to engage in humanoid robot research and development, platform software development and product sales. In 2016, UBTECH began to explore the field of education, and since 2017, Zhong Yong has been in charge of the artificial intelligence education business. UBTECH has launched a comprehensive artificial intelligence education solution of "software + hardware + content + service" to cultivate all kinds of talents to master the core literacy of artificial intelligence. Zhong Yong said that UBTECH, as a "newcomer" in the field of education, has been learning from peers, schools and front-line teachers with a humble attitude, constantly adjusting existing solutions in the feedback of data and real cases, so that artificial intelligence can better embrace education.

AI transforms education

At present, the two core application routes of artificial intelligence education are mainly "tool-based" and "content-based". As a "content-based" representative enterprise, UBTECH artificial intelligence education courses take artificial intelligence technology as the core, present in the form of building blocks, intelligent robots, single-chip microcomputers, algorithm design, data acquisition and processing, and artificial intelligence applications, integrating multidisciplinary knowledge and various digital tools in one, so that students can understand and pay attention to the development and application of artificial intelligence education related technologies, and be familiar with the design concept and working principle of intelligent robots.

In view of the widespread knowledge system fault in the "content-based" AI education curriculum system, UBTECH has launched a comprehensive AI education solution covering all sections of primary school, junior high school, high school, higher vocational school, and colleges and universities, including artificial intelligence courses, teacher training, activity competitions, space construction, education cloud platform and other content.

In the basic education stage, UBTECH takes improving the artificial intelligence literacy of primary and secondary school students as the core, provides an overall solution for artificial intelligence education covering "platform + software + hardware + course + service", builds four teaching scenarios of "AI education popularization school-AI education characteristic school-AI elite training center-AI science popularization education base", and builds a landing architecture of "1 network + 5 library + 9 applications" - with the self-developed "AI smart education platform" as the core, combined with innovative course library, hardware tool library and software application library, think tank and operation resource library, to achieve 9 application services of course services, teacher training, certification evaluation, research practice, event activities, parent-child experience, sharing and exchange, achievement incubation, and ecological integration, covering the whole link of "teaching assessment".

UBTECH's AI education services have entered many primary and secondary school classrooms.

In the stage of vocational education and higher education, UBTECH relies on its cutting-edge technological advantages and industrial landing experience in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics, links multiple ecological resources, and provides full-link digital economy skills talent training programs for on-campus and off-campus scenarios of vocational education, covering artificial intelligence, service robots, intelligent manufacturing, integrated circuits, information security and big data and other fields. In the scenario of middle and high vocational and undergraduate colleges, UBTECH promotes the joint construction of industrial colleges and majors through the integration of "post class certificate competition". In the off-campus base scenario, UBTECH Vocational Education participates in the recognition of new vocational talent standards of the government human resources and social security department, socialized vocational skills training, and launches services such as employment and entrepreneurship guidance and practice, so as to build a public practical training base for the local area.

The integrated AI education solution launched by UBTECH has landed in more than 1,000 primary and secondary schools across the country, basically covering many provinces and cities including the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, and helping more young people obtain basic AI literacy and helping the transformation of traditional education.

Frontier exploration of artificial intelligence course implementation

"To do a good job in science and technology education, we must understand both science and technology and education, and UBTECH just understands both." Zhong Yong introduced. As a cutting-edge explorer in the field of artificial intelligence education, the teaching and research team of UBTECH AI education has fully studied the characteristics of this discipline when implementing the course, and made changes that are different from traditional teaching in terms of curriculum setting, teaching ideas and teaching methods.

In terms of curriculum, artificial intelligence courses cover a wide range of disciplines, including not only traditional disciplines such as mathematics, statistics, and computers, but also programming and algorithms, with obvious interdisciplinary integration characteristics. AI education combines computer science, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, and even literature, music, fine arts, etc., requiring students to have a multidisciplinary knowledge background. Compared with the knowledge-based traditional curriculum, the artificial intelligence curriculum emphasizes the cultivation of students' higher-order thinking such as logical thinking and computational thinking, as well as teamwork ability and innovation ability. At the same time, it pays attention to personalized needs, and through big data analysis and artificial intelligence algorithms, tailors the most suitable learning plan and course content for each student. In addition, students are highly practical, and students consolidate theoretical knowledge through project-based learning, such as developing artificial intelligence algorithms, model training, data collection and data analysis. Teachers are innovative and rapid iteration of technology in the field of artificial intelligence often encourages students to come up with new ideas and solutions.

"One of the most important services in all UBTECH's operational programs is teacher training." In view of the fact that artificial intelligence is an emerging discipline and primary and secondary school teachers generally lack relevant educational background, "changes should also be made from traditional teaching in teaching ideas and teaching methods to effectively promote the development of artificial intelligence courses." Zhong Yong added. In order to provide relevant training services for teachers, UBTECH has cultivated a professional team of artificial intelligence education teachers to provide service support for the development of school artificial intelligence courses from multiple angles and in an all-round way. The artificial intelligence trainers sent by UBTECH will enter the school every semester to train teachers, and more than 200 times per semester. The training content mainly includes three aspects: general course teaching and training, club activity guidance and competition guidance. In terms of teaching ideas, teachers are guided to focus on the cultivation of students' logical thinking and computational thinking. In terms of teaching methods, trainers can flexibly use multimedia teaching methods, project-driven teaching and interactive teaching to stimulate students' interest and initiative in learning. These teacher trainings have effectively improved the artificial intelligence literacy and artificial intelligence teaching ability of primary and secondary school teachers, and promoted the in-depth development of school artificial intelligence education in the direction of standardization, standardization, regularization and characteristics.

"The essence of AI education is education"

Zhong Yong's experience of left-behind children in rural Jiangxi when he was young made Zhong Yong deeply feel the importance of artificial intelligence courses: "Where is the biggest gap between children in third- and fourth-tier cities and small towns and children in first- and second-tier cities? It is not the training of Chinese, mathematics and other disciplines, and the biggest gap lies in the lack of scientific and technological literacy and artistic literacy. Therefore, he has a sense of mission: "To really do a good job in artificial intelligence education, we must first base ourselves on education itself." I think the most important thing to do AI education is to open a window for others - to open horizons through education and cultivate AI thinking. ”

In Jingxian County, Shijiazhuang City, UBTECH has opened an artificial intelligence education and training base. An elementary school teacher who teaches information technology will drive his students back and forth for two hours to the training base every day to learn artificial intelligence courses, and insisted on two activity cycles in summer camp and winter camp. When asked what motivator drove him to last so long, the teacher replied: "Rural students don't have many opportunities to contact cutting-edge science and technology, and they just want to open their eyes and see more of the outside world." ”

Located in Tai'an, Shandong Province, Lioli Town Central Primary School is a mountain school, UBTECH has landed artificial intelligence teaching projects here, providing support for students to participate in various artificial intelligence competitions at all levels, students are very enthusiastic about artificial intelligence learning, progress is fast, and won the first prize in the 2021 Shandong NOC competition.

"The purpose of UBTECH's AI education is not to train a student to master a certain skill, we want to cultivate children's problem-solving ability and cultivate creators in the future era." Zhong Yong believes that "technology should be empowering, not leading education to move forward." "In today's extremely developed Internet, almost any knowledge can be obtained on the Internet. In the future, without even having to do it yourself, artificial intelligence will help people present all information in front of them in categories, but this low-hanging fruit knowledge cannot be regarded as learning, only independent thinking.

"What's the value of your knowledge of code? The next decade of AI development may not require programmers. First of all, UBTECH should teach children what artificial intelligence is, so that he can perceive what the future intelligent world will look like; Secondly, use the knowledge he has learned to solve some problems in life and adapt to the future life and rhythm; Finally, ethics and social responsibility in the intelligent age cannot be discussed in the future, and students should think about them now. He gave the example of "electronic guide dogs", if from the perspective of pure knowledge, students will be taught integrated sensor suites and path planning algorithms, but project-based teaching is to inspire students to solve practical problems encountered in daily life, such as path planning while identifying complex environmental scenes, improving the ability to respond to traffic lights, obstacles and pedestrian targets in the surrounding scene. Students not only master the knowledge of artificial intelligence, but also clarify future application scenarios, and enhance their sense of social responsibility.

For the future of artificial intelligence education, Zhong Yong believes that "the future is not a competition between humans and machines, but a competition between people who understand artificial intelligence and those who do not." With the accumulation of technology in the field of artificial intelligence, UBTECH will continue to aggregate the resources of the government, universities, industries and other parties to further promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and education. He believes: "In the future, artificial intelligence education will become like air and water, moisturizing a new generation of people." ”

This article was originally published in the 216th issue of Study Abroad magazine

Wen _ Su Su

Design_Li Yang